Carnegie Park opens new playground

Carnegie's new playground has been completed.

The playground is located just down the hill from the stone shelter in Carnegie Park. Construction took only two weeks and was done by McElroy Paving of Ingomar.

Borough council wanted to have the new playground done by the end of July.

“We came up a little (late) of that. But that's OK. We think it's beautiful. It has a lot of great stuff on it, a lot of things for kids to enjoy,” borough council vice-president Pat Catena said.

“Anyone who knows me knows that I have always been for the kids of this town. I always have. This is just another improvement that I really believe the kids will love.”

The new playground is predominantly green in color and has two individual play areas, one for smaller children and another for larger children. The playground features a sliding board and climbing areas.

The playground equipment cost the borough an estimated $29,000.

Catena and his son Jack, 7, visited the new playground last week. There were about nine other children there at the time, Catena said.

“He didn't want to leave. He loved it,” Catena said.

Carnegie Borough Council awarded the bid for phase one of the work to the park to McElroy in May. The bid amount was $179,448. For the improvements, Carnegie earlier this year received a $145,000 grant from the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Community Conservation Partnership Program.

Carnegie, in turn, budgeted a match to the grant.

The next improvement will be an all-access road that will encircle the park, which is located on Forsythe Road. This probably will be completed by October.

Borough council President Rick D'Loss said he is looking forward to having everything at the park completed.

“This is something we have wanted to do for some time, so yes, we want to get it done and get it done right,” D'Loss said.

Jeff Widmer is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-388-5810 or jwidmer@tribweb.com.